Chapter Eighty Five.
A change of programme.
On the far frontier of Texas, still unsettled by civilised man, no chanticleer gives note of the dawn. Instead, the meleagris salutes the sunrise with a cry equally high-toned, and quite as home-like. For the gobbling of the wild turkey-cock is scarcely distinguishable from that of his domesticated brother of the farm-yard.
A gang of these great birds has roosted in the pecan grove, close to where the prairie pirates are encamped. At daylight’s approach, they fly up to the tops of the trees; the males, as is their wont in the spring months of the year, mutually sounding their sonorous challenge.
It awakes the robbers from the slumber succeeding their drunken debauch; their chief first of any.
Coming forth from his tent, he calls upon the others to get up—ordering several horses to be saddled. He designs despatching a party to the upper plain, in search of Quantrell and Bosley, not yet come to camp.
He wants another word with the mulatto; and steps towards the tent, where he supposes the man to be.
At its entrance he sees blood—inside a dead body!
His cry, less of sorrow than anger, brings his followers around. One after another peering into the tent, they see what is there. There is no question about how the thing occurred. It is clear to all. Their prisoner has killed his guard; as they say, assassinated him. Has the assassin escaped?
They scatter in search of him, by twos and threes, rushing from tent to tent. Some proceed to the corral, there to see that the bars are down, and the horses out.
These are discovered in a strip of meadow near by, one only missing. It is that the chief had seized from their white prisoner, and appropriated. The yellow one has replevined it!
The ghastly spectacle in the tent gives them no horror. They are too hardened for that. But it makes them feel, notwithstanding; first anger, soon succeeded by apprehension. The dullest brute in the band has some perception of danger as its consequence. Hitherto their security has depended on keeping up their incognito by disguises, and the secrecy of their camping place. Here is a prisoner escaped, who knows all; can tell about their travesties; guide a pursuing party to the spot! They must remain no longer there.
Borlasse recognising the necessity for a change of programme, summons his following around him.
“Boys!” he says, “I needn’t point out to ye that this ugly business puts us in a bit o’ a fix. We’ve got to clear out o’ hyar right quick. I reckon our best way ’ll be to make tracks for San Antone, an’ thar scatter. Even then, we won’t be too safe, if yellow skin turns up to tell his story about us. Lucky a nigger’s testymony don’t count for much in a Texan court; an’ thar’s still a chance to make it count for nothin’ by our knocking him on the head.”
All look surprised, their glances interrogating “How?”
“I see you don’t understan’ me,” pursues Borlasse in explanation. “It’s easy enough; but we must mount at once, an’ make after him. He won’t so readily find his way acrosst the cut-rock plain. An’ I tell yez, boys, it’s our only chance.”
There are dissenting voices. Some urge the danger of going back that way. They may meet the outraged settlers.
“No fear of them yet,” argues the chief, “but there will be if the nigger meets them. We needn’t go on to the San Saba. If we don’t overtake him ’fore reachin’ the cottonwood, we’ll hev’ to let him slide. Then we can hurry back hyar, an’ go down the creek to the Colorado.”
The course counselled, seeming best, is decided on.
Hastily saddling their horses, and stowing the plunder in a place where it will be safe till their return, they mount, and start off for the upper plain.
Silence again reigns around the deserted camp; no human voice there—no sound, save the calling of the wild turkeys, that cannot awake that ghastly sleeper.
At the same hour, almost the very moment, when Borlasse and his freebooters, ascending from Coyote Creek, set foot on the table plain, a party of mounted men, coming up from the San Saba bottom, strikes it on the opposite edge. It is scarce necessary to say that these are the pursuing settlers. Dupré at their head. Hardly have they struck out into the sterile waste, before getting bewildered, with neither trace nor track to give them a clue to the direction. But they have with them a surer guide than the foot-prints of men, or the hoof-marks of horses—their prisoner Bill Bosley.
To save his life, the wretch told all about his late associates and is now conducting the pursuers to Coyote Creek.
Withal, he is not sure of the way; and halts hesitatingly.
Woodley mistaking his uncertainty for reluctance, puts a pistol to his head, saying:—
“Bill Bosley! altho’ I don’t make estimate o’ yur life as more account than that o’ a cat, it may be, I spose, precious to yurself. An’ ye kin only save it by takin’ us strait to whar ye say Jim Borlasse an’ his beauties air. Show sign o’ preevarication, or go a yurd’s length out o’ the right track, an’—wal, I won’t shoot ye, as I’m threetenin’. That ’ud be a death too good for sech as you. But I promise ye’ll get yer neck streetched on the nearest tree; an’ if no tree turn up, I’ll tie ye to the tail o’ my horse, an’ hang ye that way. So, take yur choice. If ye want to chaw any more corn, don’t ’tempt playin’ possum.”
“I hain’t no thought of it,” protests Bosley, “indeed I hain’t, Sime. I’m only puzzled ’bout the trail from here. Tho’ I’ve been accrost this plain several times, I never took much notice, bein’ with the others, I only know there’s a tree stands by itself. If we can reach that, the road’s easier beyont. I think it’s out yonnerways.”
He points in particular direction.
“Wal, we’ll try that way,” says Sime, adding: “Ef yer story don’t prove strait, there’ll come a crik in yur neck, soon’s it’s diskivered to be crooked. So waste no more words, but strike for the timmer ye speak o’.”
The alacrity with which Bosley obeys tells he is sincere.
Proof of his sincerity is soon after obtained in the tree itself being observed. Far off they descry it outlined against the clear sky, solitary as a ship at sea.
“Yonner it air, sure enuf!” says Woodley first sighting it. “I reck’n the skunk’s tellin’ us the truth, ’bout that stick o’ timber being a finger-post. Tharfor, no more dilly-dallying but on to’t quick as our critters can take us. Thar’s a man’s life in danger; one that’s dear to me, as I reckon he’d be to all o’ ye, ef ye knowed him, same’s I do. Ye heerd what the old kurnel sayed, as we war startin’ out: cost what it mout, Charley Clancy air to be saved. So put the prod to your critters, an’ let’s on!”
Saying this, the hunter spurs his horse to its best speed; and soon all are going at full gallop in straight course for the cottonwood.